Can a Tesla Go Off-Road Up a Rocky Mountain? We Compare It to an Old-School SUV | Adventure X Ep. 3

looks like a UFO yeah it's electric man or off-roading with electricity I've got the suspension in its highest setting higher I definitely [Music] hey guys if you've been watching our Tesla Adventure egg series you know that we're trying to take that car and turn it into not only a towing rig but and adventure over landing rig and to do that it has to go off-road so last week we told with it and this week we're going to compare it to a vehicle that Tommy's brought that is very off-road worthy so let's see what Tommy has brought check it out this is our 2004 of Volkswagen Touareg fresh from the lab bug guts and dirt everywhere and we're gonna compare this 15 year old Volkswagen to that brand new Tesla off-road just to see what these two vehicles both of the air suspension can do so on this trip we've been averaging a whopping get this 1828 watt hours per mile this is got to be some of the highest consumption I've ever seen that's a Friday my feet aren't getting hot in this video we are taking both the Touareg but more importantly the Tesla Model X of our TfL Rocky Top Trail this is our standard off-road test route up here in the Colorado's it's steep and it's pretty rocky and we're also going to talk about why we're having such a hard time finding an all-terrain tire for that Model X and why it was so easy to find one on the Volkswagen Touareg but first let's run the Tesla Model X through the TfL all-wheel drive slip test to see if we have any chance whatsoever of getting this all-wheel drive vehicle up our trail so front wheel slip test both front wheels are stuck in the rollers so what we do is always the same into reverse first so we can get up on the bow instant acceleration and then into neutral foot off the brake let the car settle and then into drive now there's not really an off-road mode to put the Model X into it's just normal traction control on there is a slip start we'll play with if we get stuck and I do have air suspension on the high setting just for a little bit of extra clearance so into drive a little bit of throttle okay so just like that the rear wheels pulled us off no problem whatsoever with the front wheels stuck and now we have a bit of an issue because Tesla doesn't actually publish anything on how the all-wheel-drive system works how the traction control system works so it's all kind of speculation done online now I have read that the rear motor and a Model X is more powerful than the front so what's gonna happen if we get the rear wheel stuck is the front motor gonna be able to pull us off let's see let er settle and now into drive so tiny bit of throttle oh yeah that tells me that the front wheels are engaged right off the bat when you go to accelerate which is great before if you're stuck in the snow or you're trying to get through a little bit of a sandy patch the next up is the diagonal slip test what this means is the front left and the rear right are gonna be stuck and this is usually a pretty big issue for vehicles with open disks because power always goes path of least resistance or maybe I should say torque so essentially the wheels and the rollers will spin and spin and then the wheels with traction will just do nothing so what we need here is for the brakes to engage to send power to the wheels with traction let's see if that works and to drive just a little bit of throttle there you go so we add a little bit of spinning and then the brakes engaged and pulled us right off that's exactly how it was supposed to work next up though is the most difficult of our tests the three-wheeled slip test [Music] this is a test that a lot of vehicles really struggle with come on okay and into neutral I am on a little bit of a hill let the vehicle settle just a little bit of throttle traction control is flashing but we made it off so very impressive result let's try it one more time make it even a little bit harder by putting the front wheel as the one of traction come on Tesla a little bit of throttle okay we appear to be stuck let me go ahead and engage slip start which is supposed to help free the vehicle and snow mud or sand now that seems work so let me turn that off let me try it one more time spinning but certainly it wasn't easy although hey we're off back to the off-roading the reason we purchased the Model X and we're trying to turn it into an Overland ER is because out of all the electric cars that are on the market today it has the most range the most towing ability and for off-roading it has air suspension just like that Touareg so in order to go off-road you need to have good approach good departure and good break over angles and with air suspension that is one of the keys to achieving good numbers in all three of those measurements so let's see just how high goes I believe in it's super high height it goes up to eight point seven inches of ground clearance and let's see how that compares to the Touareg that test actually is five different suspension height settings very low low standard high and very high the Volkswagen Touareg has four ranging from low level all the way up to extra off-road level so four is less than five but I think we can demonstrate something very important here because in the tour egg's lowest setting Volkswagen says I have just under six point three inches of ground clearance but in its highest setting well I'll let the difference show itself because while the Tesla may get lower than the volkswagen the volkswagen can get way higher than the Tesla [Music] okay check this out in the highest extra off-road setting Volkswagen says that this Touareg has 11.81 inches of ground clearance and we've made it even a little bit taller with these extra big offer tires but just to give you a sense I mean that's well over two fists to the top of the fender here what about the Tesla well in the very high setting on the Tesla it's about eight point seven inches of ground clearance so the variation on the Touareg is about six all the way up to twelve it's much smaller on this Tesla you can see I can't even quite get two fists inside there the test is so in terms of the just extreme amount of height variation the Volkswagen is the easy winner here [Music] [Music] currently Tesla builds as you know three cars they build the Model X the Model S and of course the model three and out of those three this is actually the only one the Tesla says can go on dirt roads like this but there are two other cars that directly compete with this Model X that are actually much more off-road worthy number one is a Jaguar ipace which I've actually driven off-road and drove of bleeding out through a river in Europe and there's the brand new Audi e-tron which also directly competes with the Model X and that one obvious yours me is incredibly off-road worthy in fact II did the press launch in the desert driving it up and down sand dunes so you might be wondering to yourself if there are two more cars that are much more off-road worthy why do we buy the Tesla Model X and not the I pace or the e-tron and there's a simple reason for that this has by far the longest range 325 miles of range those other two cars gold barely over 200 and when it comes to having an overland er you want range you want to be able to go off-road as far as possible and since we're gonna be towing a trailer you want to be able to have the most range while towing so while this is not the most off-road where the vehicle out of the ones that are out there right now as we're proving by not being able even find off-road worthy tyres for it it is the only one that can actually pull a trailer a relatively serious amount of distance before running out of power and that's why we're turning this into our adventure rig and not an eye pace or an e-tron [Music] oh yeah it's electric net or off-roading with electricity oh what a cutie have a good day guys okay bye [Music] besides ground clearance the biggest improvement you can make to a vehicles off-road worthiness is right here it's just a better set of all-terrain tires now you can tell we've put on some BF gko twos onto the track and we would really love to do the same thing get some altering tires on the Tesla but that is proving to be very difficult and it starts with right here if you look under the suspension you'll see that there's a suspension member that actually pokes out over at the top of this tire making it impossible to actually put a bigger should I say taller tire on the Tesla that's the first problem the second problem is that these tires are staggered and what I mean by that is this tire isn't as wide as the rear tire then there's a problem with the 20-inch wheels you cannot currently buy a set of all-terrain tires that fits this Tesla with these 20-inch wheels but to better explain the technical issue I'll have time you tell you about it what I have here is the original wheel and tire off of our Volkswagen Touareg it's a 2 55 55 r18 it's a 29 inch tire in diameter which you actually find is the exact same diameter as what you'll find on the Tesla the test is a 265 45 R 20 now you'll notice over here in the Volkswagen then we have a much much bigger tire a 32 inch tire and how do we get a 32 inch tire on this Volkswagen well we started off by fitting a smaller wheel a 17 inch wheel and because we don't have any issues with clearance in terms of the suspension we could go pretty much as big as we wanted here on the tire within reason but on the Tesla where we're really stuck because I tried doing the same thing that we did on the correct now obviously you can't find a BF g at a 265 45 hour 20 it just doesn't exist they don't make a offer tire in this low profile so naturally why don't you just shrink the wheel well Tesla you can only go to about a 19-inch wheel because anything smaller and you'll run into clearance with the brakes so great go down to a 19-inch wheel well that only allows you to go up to about a 255 50 are 19 and just still can't get off retires into two 5550 are 19 and if you go any higher I mean any higher to get any additional sidewall so you can start getting into the off-road tire diameters you're gonna run into issues with suspension so we're just completely stuck I do have one idea because there is one tire made by one manufacturer in one tread pattern that might that might fit a 19-inch wheel so we're gonna have to try that next [Music] [Applause] so as you know Tommy this is Rocky Top it's your standard off-road test of vehicles that don't really have a low range you know your basic crossover and I think this is gonna be tough for me in the Tesla because unlike the Touareg I have a flat bottom but the problem with that is if you went over a point you rock with the track then you may puncture what well I mean you could potentially puncture the transmission you could puncture an oil pan maybe a gas tank if you're super unlucky but on the Volkswagen it's also tucked up underneath the body you'd have to be going over some pretty serious terrain before you even come close to hitting a gas tank yeah I on the other hand have a flat bottom that's all batteries and you put a pointy Rock through that battery and we're gonna be calling the fire department yeah so why don't you go up in the track see how it does and then I'll try going up to the Tesla and if I feel like I'm gonna be punching a hole through a battery I'm just gonna give up I'm calling it because we don't have any underbody protection at least not yet that's part of this series yep before you comment how this is a stupid comparison and how these vehicles are just too different for off-roading keep this in mind neither of them have a permanent mounted tow hooks neither of them have skid plates they both have independent suspension they both have very suspension they both have all-wheel-drive and for this test I'm not gonna use low range because a test doesn't have it I'm not gonna use my rear Locker [Music] oh this is where Rocky Top bites it's an alley part of the trail I think I'm at they have time you spot me up this in the Tesla but for the Touareg hey Tommy take whatever line you want I think you'll have no issues whatsoever let's watch them go up okay the harder part on the Rocky Top now in this Volkswagen Touareg a of course have a low range at Central Locker and a rear Locker I'm not gonna use any of those I'm just gonna let the vehicle figure it out by itself just like the Tesla can do and for those of you saying you're only making it up because you have all-terrain tires that's not true because go watch my previous Tufte series we're actually made it up this hill with street tires so let's see what I'm gonna do here try to make it deliberately hard just for kicks that is how I deal with wheels in the air good job VW yeah I don't think I'll be taking that line I'm sure that while mr. musk felt like he was building the ultimate SUV he wasn't building it to do stuff like this but there's only one way to find out so first dirt let's talk about the good the bad and the ugly the good is that I have instant torque so I really don't need a low-range it's a great thing about electric motors tons of torque I've got a lot of control so that old saying as slow as possible as fast as necessary that's why I'm gonna take this hill the bad well you make sure my suspension is set to a tight as tight eight point seven inches of ground clearance is okay but I'd rather have more because obviously the more ground clearance I have the more room I have for error and the ugly well that's simple I'm putting $87,000 car in harm's way and yeah it could all go terribly wrong let's hope now I've got the suspension in it's high it's setting and now it's up to me in the car to make it up rocky top and I've got Tommy spotting me which is a lot of help I figured it out Oh small tire okay this one you're gonna want to stay right okay staying right nice nice and slow please just so you can see yep that looks good let me take this slow Tonya you can do it wrong tires really I think with some good tires this would be a lot easier but here comes a really hard part okay so up this obstacle the traction control system figured out what was in the air it broke those wheels and sent power to the wheels of traction it actually worked pretty well and pretty fast so let's get to the hard part now all right Park Assist chimes are off so now we're really off-road ready okay so this is the part I didn't even think about in the Touareg cuz there's so much ground clearance but even in very high suspension setting I'm a little bit worried about this so we're gonna take it super slow why doing dude this is what the future of electricity and off-roading looks like go go go to my yep slow slow slow well you are just barely gonna clear it okay come a little bit passenger yeah [Music] that is so close on that rocker but you're gonna be done all right here comes the hard part man there is not a lot of clearance on this car yeah that's an atty setting does not you know the rubicon trails but even still slow okay power it up you're good nice and slow and look how close that rocker is getting even that mild stump race [Music] alright here we go here's the hard part halt halt halt stop stop I can't use momentum cuz I will hit something normally I could use a Windham good you have to say harder passenger let me see doesn't smell good that's tyre I definitely hit there where he hit right here [Music] [Applause] [Applause] it's not hard it's just these tires it's just not happy I spent the last ten years off-roading and you can pretty much tell immediately when a car is happy and what it's not happy and this one's not happy I'm not saying you can't do it it's just not designed for it I can't go what you can't go inside a pretty terrible experience I must say I just like maybe the batteries have some kind of protection but it really just feels like plastic paneling under there you puncture one of those who days over the forest days could be over so we're going to have to dress this if we're going to keep off-roading it [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so it's Model X our adventure X any good off-road and the answer I fear is no it's just too delicate at this moment but there is good news I mean look the track made it look easy and the good news with the Model X is that the bones are all there the torque delivery is excellent the all-wheel-drive system such as it is isn't actually bad it's kind of the beginnings of a very rudimentary terrain management system and it's got plenty of power and plenty of control and that's the basis to having a good off rotor so I think with a little bit of work Tommy if we can find some tires if we can get some protection we can actually make it an off-road worthy vehicle right now my call is that it's much more of a soft rotor than an all rotor what do you think I would call it beyond the soft rotor because we've taken some pretty soft rotor vehicles like the rav4 hybrid up here yeah and I just like I really don't trust the underbody protection on this vehicle and maybe it has some but from what it looks like underneath there if you puncture a battery your day is done and so could the forest yeah so we did make it to the top but with a little help from my friend it's always Roman and Tommy go back to TfL car comm for more news use and of course Tesla Adventure X off-road reviews I think we're the first ones they actually take it seriously off-roading Tommy I mean you know people have taken it like down a muddy field or in some snow or in some sand but this you know this is this is Colorado off-road we just drove up a mountain [Music] hey perfect line straight on straight on hey that worked my way [Music] some more the [Music] [Music] I made it down but this poor car I mean it should be like cruising up and down the streets of Hollywood or Malibu and not up here climbing Rocky Top and you can really tell the weight of the thing I mean it's a heavy vehicle especially with all those batteries so on the way down you feel like you have control but points it just starts to slip and you're like I got my foot on the brake and yet it's still going down the hill now of course a lot of off-roaders do that but you could really tell how heavy this one is so the bones are good I love the fact that it's super quiet I love the fact that it kind of feels like it's at one with nature but as a off-roader there's still a way to go we have noted something pretty crazy here going up our rocky top hill our consumption has been off the charts literally we've been averaging over 1500 watt hours per mile which is almost as much as we were averaging towing 4,500 pounds of the eye collet in the previous video our projected range if we use the last five miles as a baseline is just 37 miles [Music] [Applause]

Channel: The Fast Lane Car

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Keywords: tesla model x, tesla, model x, tesla model s, tesla model 3, tesla offroad, offroad, tesla model x off road, tesla off road, tesla model x vs offroad, model x off road, model 3, model s, tesla model s offroad, 2018 tesla model x off road, tesla model x off road edition, 2018 tesla model x off road edition, tesla model 3 off road, tesla model s off road, tesla model x p90dl, tesla model x 2018, The Fast Lane Car, TFLcar

Id: Vm5iVpt-tbk

Length: 26min 8sec (1568 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 18 2019